Final report ASTC Program

The specific goals of the ASTC program were: to pilot and administer a year round program to engage and support ethnic minority and women students to enter the pre-college teaching profession; and to develop the ASTC program across California on all twenty CSU campuses. The initial goal of piloting a year round program to engage and support ethnic or underrepresented science students to enter the teaching profession was put in place at CSUS in the Fall of 1993, with the recruitment of students to enter the program in the Spring of 1993. Three students were selected to enter the program, one male Latino, one female Latina and one Caucasian female. The areas of study of these students was respectively biology, physics and geology. All of the students were within two years or less of completing their degree requirements. During the first semester of the program the authors worked on the portion of the model dealing with student participation in the schools with a mentor teacher. The idea being the students would spend a minimum of six hours a week in the classroom of the mentor teacher working with them and their students. In addition the students were assigned to a faculty mentor within their discipline, a person whom they could go to for help and support in their academic efforts. The report discusses what was learned